Richard Bucke (1581 or 1582–ca. 1624)

Richard Bucke was an Anglican
minister who came to Jamestown in 1610, may have performed the marriage ceremony for Pocahontas and John Rolfe in 1614, and in 1619
opened with prayer the first legislative assembly in Virginia. Born and educated in
England, Bucke was delayed on his way to Virginia by a storm and spent almost ten
months in Bermuda. For a time he was the only minister in Jamestown, and his
experiences in the colony seem to have been difficult. His date of death appears to
have been around 1624. MORE...

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Bucke was born either in 1581 or in 1582, the son of Edmund Bucke and a mother whose
name is unknown. He was born in the county of Norfolk, England, and attended a local
school. On April 26, 1600, he was admitted at age eighteen as a sizar, or student on
scholarship, to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University. Bucke was married,
possibly to Elizabeth Browne, on July 7, 1607, in Tharston Parish, Norfolk, and had
at least one daughter before, on the recommendation of the bishop of London, he was
appointed chaplain of the expedition headed by Sir Thomas Gates that departed Plymouth Sound for
Virginia on June 2, 1609.

The Sea Venture, on which Bucke and his family traveled, ran afoul of a hurricane late in July.
After about five days of tumultuous weather, the vessel wrecked on one of the Bermuda
islands. During the nine and a half months that the 150 colonists were stranded on
the island, Bucke conducted sermons twice on Sundays, mostly on the subjects of
thanksgiving and unity, and performed a marriage, two baptisms, and five funerals.
Finally able to build two smaller vessels, the party left the island on May 10, 1610,
arrived at Point Comfort on May 21, and landed on May 23 at Jamestown. There Bucke
made "a zealous and sorrowfull Prayer, finding all things so contrary to our
expectations, so full of misery and misgovernment."

The minister in the colony having died, Bucke
found himself the only clergyman in Virginia and conducted twice-daily services in an
effort to improve the colonists' morale during this unsettling period. Later his
fellow minister Alexander Whitaker characterized him in 1613 as "an able and painfull
Preacher." In April 1614 Bucke may have performed the marriage ceremony for John Rolfe, with
whom he had traveled on the Sea Venture, and Pocahontas, and
he later witnessed Rolfe's will. On July 30, 1619, Bucke opened the initial meeting
of the first legislative assembly in Virginia with prayer. At least twice in 1621 he
requested Sir Edwin Sandys's
assistance in getting the Virginia
Company of London to fulfill the terms of its agreement with him, both in
payments and in supplying indentured servants, because the terms of the latter
already assigned to him were soon due to expire. Bucke resided on a 750-acre tract,
including glebe land, in Jamestown promised him by the company and patented in
1620.

Bucke may have returned to England at least once. It is possible that his wife died
and that he remarried, perhaps to a woman named Bridget. Bucke had three sons and one
daughter born in Virginia between 1611 and 1620. Two of these children won some
notice in their own right. Mara Bucke, the eldest, was the subject of a case heard in
the General Court in 1624.
Following testimony regarding rumors that David Sandys, a minister, planned to steal
the thirteen-year-old away from her
guardians' house and marry her, the court instructed her guardians to give security
that they would thwart any marriage attempts. Benoni Bucke, born in 1616, proved
incapable of managing his inheritance and, deemed "the first Ideott found in that
plantation," became in 1637 the first subject of a commission to determine
competency. The names given the four children born in the colony reflect the possible
Puritan philosophy of Bucke as well as the hardships he endured in Virginia: Mara
(bitter), Gershon (expulsion), Benoni (sorrow), and Peleg (division).

The exact date of Richard Bucke's death is unknown. He is not listed among those
killed during the Powhatan uprising in March 1622, but the census of January 1624
omitted him and described his four youngest children as living in three different
households, which strongly suggests that he was dead by then. On June 21, 1624, the
General Court ordered his daughter's guardians to give £100 security to the executors
of the minister's estate.

Time Line

1581 or 1582
- In one of these two years, Richard Bucke is born in the county of Norfolk, England, the son of Edmund Bucke and a mother whose name is unknown.

April 26, 1600
- Richard Bucke is admitted as a sizar, or student on scholarship, to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University.

June 2, 1609
- The largest fleet England has ever amassed in the West—nine ships, 600 passengers, and livestock and provisions to last a year—leaves England for Virginia. Led by the flagship Sea Venture, the fleet's mission is to save the failing colony. Sir Thomas Gates heads the expedition.

May 10, 1610
- The party of Virginia colonists headed by Sir Thomas Gates and including the chaplain Richard Bucke leave the Bermuda islands where they had been stranded for nearly a year and sail north to Virginia.

May 21, 1610
- Having been stranded in the Bermuda islands for nearly a year, the party of Virginia colonists headed by Sir Thomas Gates arrives at Point Comfort in the Chesapeake Bay.

May 24, 1610
- The party of Virginia colonists headed by Sir Thomas Gates, , now aboard the Patience and Deliverance, arrives at Jamestown. They find only sixty survivors of a winter famine. Gates decides to abandon the colony for Newfoundland.

1611–1620
- Richard Bucke, a minister at Jamestown, has three sons and one daughter born in Virginia. Their names possibly reflect the hardships Bucke endures: Mara (bitter), Gershon (expulsion), Benoni (sorrow), and Peleg (division).

April 5, 1614
- On or about this day, Pocahontas and John Rolfe marry in a ceremony assented to by Sir Thomas Dale and Powhatan, who sends one of her uncles to witness the ceremony. Powhatan also rescinds a standing order to attack the English wherever and whenever possible, ending the First Anglo-Powhatan War.

1616
- Benoni Bucke, son of the Jamestown minister Richard Bucke, is born. Proved incapable of managing his inheritance, he is deemed "the first Ideott found in that plantation."

July 30, 1619
- Richard Bucke opens the initial meeting of the first legislative assembly in Virginia with prayer.

January 1624
- Richard Bucke's name is omitted from the Jamestown census, suggesting his death.

June 21, 1624
- The General Court orders Richard Bucke's daughter's guardians to give £100 security to the executors of the minister's estate.